Goldman Sachs bankers are on course to scoop average payouts of £280,000 this year, after receiving a 15 per cent pay rise.

The investment banking giant was yesterday accused of showing a 'complete lack of sensitivity’ by campaigners.

Figures released tomorrow are expected to show the average wage in Britain is just 1.6 per cent higher than a year ago.

Insiders at the bank sought to defend the pay rise for staff, arguing that it was awarded because its revenues also increased

The bumper pay rise at Goldman Sachs means it would now take the typical worker more than ten years to earn what one of its bankers might typically take home in a year.

Deborah Hargreaves, director of campaign group the High Pay Centre said:'Goldman is the extreme offender when it comes to excessive pay. There is an urgent requirement for pay restraint which we are not seeing.

This shows a complete lack of sensitivity to struggling families and its clients.’

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Figures released by Goldman yesterday showed it earmarked almost £7 billion - or 44 per cent of its revenues - in the first nine months of the year for staff pay and bonuses.

Shared out between its 32,600 workers
worldwide – including 5,500 in London - that translates into an average
package of £208,730 so far this year. This represents a 15 per cent
increase on the £181,692 earned by 34,200 workers during the same period
last year.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein took a 35 per cent pay cut last year to £7.5 million

Assuming they continue earning at the same rate in the final three months of the year, the average Goldman employee will receive a total annual package of £278,307.

Experts last night said that the scale of the payout was 'incredibly high’.

David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said:'These eye-watering profits and pay are further evidence that banks are a law unto themselves. While the rest of us are belt-tightening, banks are yet to change their ways.If banks can afford to dole out such lavish bonuses, they can afford to pay more to get the economy they helped derail back on track.’

News of the awards emerged amid fresh allegations about the 'toxic’ culture at the investment bank.

In leaked extracts from a new book, former Goldman banker Greg Smith described how trainees were forced to attend pre-dawn 'boot camp’ grillings and suffer humiliation if they got their boss’s lunch order wrong.

Smith also describes how interns were forced to scramble to find small folding stools because there were not any spare chairs on the trading floors.

If they did manage to get hold of one they were forced to carry them around as a symbol of their lowly status, he claimed.

Smith sprang to prominence in March after he accused senior staff at the bank of calling clients 'muppets’ and treating them with contempt.

The allegations were hugely embarrassing to the blue chip investment bank which embarked upon a 'muppet hunt’ to investigate Smith’s claims.

An internal scan of emails is said to have found 4,000 mentions of 'muppets’ but 99 per cent of them referred to a movie about the famous TV characters.

Goldman, for years regarded as the smartest bank on Wall Street, has fallen on tougher times during the downturn and has slashed 1,600 staff over the last year in a bid to cut costs.

Its chief executive Lloyd Blankfein took a 35 per cent pay cut last year to £7.5 million, down from the staggering £42 million he pocketed before the financial crisis in 2007.

Insiders at the bank sought to defend the pay rise for staff, arguing that it was awarded because its revenues also increased.

But Deborah Hargreaves said: 'This pay increase also shows a complete lack of sensitivity to any clients referred to as muppets.’

Goldman made a profit of £930 million in the three months to the end of September compared with a £393 million loss during the same period last year.